Climate Change

April showers bring May flowers. That’s the rhyme, but it often doesn’t work out that way. It’s just a way to make people feel better about the wet days that seem to happen in April in the northern hemisphere. Lately, though it’s more false than in previous years.

Last year March was hot, with temperatures in the eighties. This year, we didn’t get that, it was cold and snowy – more like February weather. April was more like March weather this year. It’s still rainy and has been for the last couple of weeks as I write these words. It’s more like March with high winds. We haven’t had too many thunderstorms – yet. They could still come and probably will.

April was March this year. That leads me to conclude that May is more like April should be. This is a sign of climate change. Well, I think it is anyway. Some people don’t even believe the climate is changing at all. They are in denial. Other people believe the climate is changing, but that it is part of the natural cycle of climate change. They could be right. Others believe, as I do, that we humans have affected our climate. These last are divided into two groups. One group says we have to work to reverse the change and the other says there is no point in trying – it’s irreversible.

Which group is right? The climate is undoubtedly changing. Whether that climate change is natural, or not, is immaterial. What is germane to our situation is that the climate is changing and if we want to avoid extinction, we have to do something.

Did we cause it? I don’t know. I believe we had an effect on the climate. Can we reverse it? I am not sure, but I don’t think so. I don’t think we should waste our resources on trying either. I think we should begin to plan on what we are going to do to survive the change. Our resources are dwindling and we need to change what we need before those resources are gone. That’s evolution in progress. Nature is selecting against us. If we don’t change, we will go the way of the dinosaurs. That would not be good at least, not from our point of view.

How much of our environment have we irreversibly destroyed? I don’t think that’s a good question. It is certainly not a fair question although there are those would disagree. How can we reverse or mitigate the damage that we have done. That’s the better question and more importantly, it motivates us to try. I think we should try.

The politicians say we Americans need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. That’s too narrow. We need to reduce our dependence on oil. It’s a finite resource and one that will cause war in the future. We need to come up with solutions to that issue. We need to devote money to that cause – find alternative fuels. We are working on it, but it is low key. It’s too bad we can’t take polluted air, clean it, and put it back, while reusing the chemicals we remove from it to make other, more useful, chemicals. That would be a start to repairing the damage to the environment. No one can deny that chemical pollution is not a natural phenomenon. Our reaction to the problem has been too slow. We’ve known for thirty plus years that our oil reserves are finite and yet we still haven’t come up with a replacement source of energy. We’ve known for more than forty years that we are polluting our environment and we have done only a little of what we need to do.

These problems are not going to go away. We need to train people to work on eliminating the problems and we need people to work on how to render our dangerous chemical refuse into something either less toxic or completely non-toxic. It’s too bad we can’t use a chemical mishmash of toxins to power a spacecraft to the edge of the solar system and study planets on the way. That would be a good use of it. Could it be done? Has anyone tried to figure that out? We have an abundance of waste that we could recycle into rocket fuel, assuming that we could such a thing. It would be nice if we could.

I don’t have the answer to that problem. I wish I did. I wish I could inspire just one person to try and that one person to influence another and another until we solve the issue. As it is, the dinosaurs were better than we are. They reigned longer and left the world as unpolluted as they found it. Sadly, we cannot say the same.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!